Trav's Travels: Happy Anniversary! And Big Wind Storm

10/11/12 Elisha and my 4th Anniversary!

Today I went out to do bamboo forest, which is one of our longer jobs out in the cold. When I returned, and when I could finally see through my frosty goggles, I had a very sweet surprise from Elisha. With the help of Elissa, Elisha had coordinated having some pictures printed out at my desk and some chai tea with a shot of whisky. And on the computer, Bret Dennen's "Ain't No Reason" was cued up for me to play. That is the first song that Elisha sang for me while playing guitar in McMurdo that helped me fall for her. Very sweet and thoughtful of her to arrange all of this!

Nate made a super delicious seafood pasta with scallops and shrimp. He also made a carrots and bean dish and poppyseed muffins with lemon glaze for dinner

10/12

I made chili cheese brats (and veggie burgers for Marie). I used leftover veggie chili from Elissa's meal last week and some frozen meat chili left over from Kathy this summer. Some of the last cooking of Kathy's! I cooked the brats in Dunkel beer that Elissa and Nate had brewed. Beer brats, one of my mom's favorites. I also baked some frozen jalapeño poppers. For dessert I made chocolate covered macadamia nuts, one of my dad's favorites. Since Storm made Thanksgiving dinner last week, I decided to make Superbowl Dinner, which is America's next biggest food holiday.

10/13

Elissa made ground turkey burritos with some good colorful vegetables (corn, sweet potatoes, and peppers). She also made a side dish of green vegetables. And she baked some cookies from dough Kathy had frozen

We've been in a big wind storm the last several days (25-30 knot winds). It's blowing tons of snow so that the visibility is down to 200-400 meters, and even at times, less than 100meters (Condition 1). The 2 foot drift that was outside of the greenhouse is now about 8 feet tall. It won't be long until the greenhouse gets buried. Then we have to keep escape pits dug for our windows in the case of a fire..

People have been skipping some of their outside duties b/c of the wind, but I haven't missed any yet. What wind? I grew up in Estes Park. This is a puff of a breeze! The seismometer has been acting up, so I needed to go into the seismometer trench to adjust some things. Everyone said it would be impossible to dig the 10 feet down to get to the trench with the drifting snow as it was. But I did it! I called Marie out to spot me while I went under in case the whole got drifted over while I was down there. The high winds have definitely made the balloon launches interesting. When it's Elissa's turn, I have to go out and help her. She's so small, I'm afraid she'll get blown away.

I've included some screen shots of data we've collected. One is of our seismometer where it "felt" and recorded a 6+ magnitude earthquake that hit Fiji in September. It's cool to see the increase in the seismic waves and also interesting to see the delay from when the earthquake happened in Fiji until we measured it. I've also included a CO2 graph from our air sampling. Many scientists have stated that once we get above 400ppm (parts per million) then we have reached a point of no return with greenhouse gasses and are at a point where we will have dire consequences. As you can see, Elissa and I measured some in the 407ppm range this year

10/14

Storm made "Christmas dinner" tonight. Since the weather was so bad he spent the whole day cooking. He made empanadas (cheese and egg and then from Elissa's vegetable dish), large soft pretzels, and blueberry muffins for lunch. For dinner he made a honey glazed whole ham, some spicy vegetables, and butter rolls. For dessert he made vanilla iceream and a mixed-berry pie

10/15

The wind continues to whip. At night, in the greenhouse, it sounds like we're in the hull of ship as it goes through big swells. When I'm in TAWO the whole building rocks like I'm in a boat, since it's on stilts.

It's just crazy how the wind has been strong and steady for the last several days without relenting at all. Because up here there are no buildings, trees, or mountains to block any of the wind, it is carrying mass amounts of snow. So much snow that visibility can be just 100 feet or less. It swirls in your face and would scratch your eyes if you didn't wear eye protection (we wear clear goggles at night). Sometimes I have a little bit of skin showing on my forehead when I make the less than 1 minute walk between the big and green house, and I get a major icecream headache. Visibility is so low that we now have to check in on the radio every time we leave and arrive at a building

I made mahi mahi with a lemon garlic basil butter sauce for dinner

10/16

<1 a="" and="" arrive="" at="" between="" bighouse="" bit="" building="" buildings="" but="" call="" completely="" don="" even="" every="" flag="" for="" get="" greenhouse="" have="" headache.="" i="" icecream="" if="" in="" just="" leave="" lines="" little="" lost="" major="" min="" of="" on="" outside="" p="" plastered="" radio="" re="" safety.="" sake="" set="" snow.="" so="" t="" that="" the="" time="" to="" up="" walk="" we="" you="">The wind calmed down to 15 knots today and visibility was decent, so Elissa and I decided it might be our only window to do our October ICESAT traverse, so we we headed out and did it. It was pretty cold, but I stayed warm. But poor Elissa was freezing almost the whole time. I gave her my handwarmers for her hands, but her whole body was cold. But we made it through! Our last ICESAT of the season. I actually really like ICESAT b/c I like going out in the middle of nowhere on snowmobile, but it is a lot of prep. We celebrated with steaks and some wine for dinner. But poor Elissa was cold the rest of the night. Even after she took a long shower that completely exhausted the hot water on station, she was still cold. The Sunday night move that everyone was watching the the 1984 "The Thing" which is a scary movie from a small base in Antarctica. Needless to say, when I had to walk down to the SOB at night in the dark to fill up the night balloon, I was kind of spooked.

10/17

me after arriving back from bamboo forest measuring

Elisha's surprise for me that Elissa set up

She had Brett Dennen's 'Ain't No Reason' cued up

"yellow blue bus" sounds like how they say "I love you" in Russian

chocolate covered macadamia nuts

beer brats, veg chili, meat chili, and veggie patties

me after bamboo forest

I don't know if you can see the drifting and blowing snow. It was crazy. Standing on TAWO you felt as though you were on a super fast moving boat b/c all the snow below was moving like water.